


Sure Beats the Elephants

by BunnyMoss



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 4, Monster Hunter (Video Games)
Genre: Crack Crossover, Crossover, Drug Use, Fluff, M/M, Why Did I Write This?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-07 12:47:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18410957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BunnyMoss/pseuds/BunnyMoss
Summary: "We're going to ride a Jagras, Ajay!""A what?!"Some things ship overnight. Some of those things are better purchased under the influence. Some of those things absolutely should not be ridden through Kyrat like some kind of barbaric steed of triumphant destruction. But we're here now, aren't we? And Pagan's latest late-night coke-fueled bad decision has just shipped in from somewhere called Astera.





	1. 6 AM

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there! This'll be my first work on AO3 and man. What a way to start. You ever just have one of those uncomfortably intrusive thoughts that prod at your brain while you're doing something else? That leave you wondering what the hell is wrong with you? Enough long overtime hours at work and some loud Bombay Royale in my headphones later, all I hear is Pagan excitedly telling Ajay they're going Great Jagras riding. Why? Hell if I know. But hey! Here we are, you're along for this ride with me now. You're welcome. And I'm sorry.

“Ajay.”

“Ajaaaaay…”

“ _You really should pick up, my boy_.”

Ajay grits his teeth and pulls the handset from his bedside table, flicking the volume off. Not now, not when he's trying to sleep in. Not after the absolute fucking bender last night. He tosses onto his side, rolling away from his bedroom door. He squeezes his eyes shut to the blinding sunlight filtering in through the bedroom window, and then he hears it.  _God fucking damnit._

Sharp shoes clicking on the old wooden floors, echoing down the long hallway of the upper floor, racing right for his door no doubt.

He stuffs a pillow over his head, tucks his knees closer to his chest. Maybe if he pretends he's so hungover he can't wake up, he can get away with it. He's dragging something heavy, he can hear it now. It's scraping and scratching down the floor just like this entire morning is on his nerves. It's probably only something like six AM.  _Go the fuck back to sleep, Pagan…_

And then he  _kicks_  the door in, sending Ajay scrambling up onto his bare ass in great surprise. And he's standing there, smiling so serenely like he hasn't just fucking casually booted a heavy wooden door right off its hinges at  _six_  in the  _God damn morning_  – “what the fuck Pagan?!” Ajay finishes his thought aloud, clutching his chest in surprise.

“I said pick up!” Pagan chirps cheerily, still dressed to the nines in the same garish fuchsia suit he’d been wearing the night before.

“Jesus Christ, man--?!” Ajay gawks, wide eyed, throwing his open palms in a blatant  _do you not see the door jamb you just wrecked_  gesture.

“Ajaaaay… if you only just bothered to respond to me every once in a while, things wouldn’t have to be this way!” Pagan scolds with all the ardor of a disappointed parent teaching his son a hard lesson.

Parents don't match their children shot for shot in drinking contests or make favor-laden bargains instead of bets at Shanath late into the night. And christ, the way he just stands there looking like he'd eat shit and like it, happy as a clam – it makes his fucking teeth itch.

“You know you don’t need to use the radio when we're  _five rooms away_ ,” Ajay says flatly, scooping the covers over his cold body as he remembers that he is in fact still quite in the nude, just the way he likes to sleep, “and what the  _fuck_ are you holding?”

“Listen. Ajay. Ajaaaay. I've had a tremendous idea,” Pagan says profoundly, staring at him with those wide, dilated eyes that come with a coke high, “listen, I've had Gary go and fetch me something of great value. And it's off in the lowlands now waiting for us! Come on you lazy cunt, I spent good money on your whiskey binge last night! It's the least you can do!”

He isn't wrong, Ajay had seen the cash changing hands last night. And he knows Pagan so well by now, sharing such close quarters with the man. He knows that on stretches like these, when he tries to drown out that old lingering pain with money, dust, and guns, there will be no shutting the King up until he’s gotten what he wants.

And shit. It’ll make for fantastic blackmail later if he can get anything wild on video.

So, against his better judgment, Ajay finds the willpower to crawl out of his warm, cozy sheets and rummage for some clothes while that bastard just stands there holding a draconian coil of leather strap and chain. But his head is killing him, and his knees still hurt from the fall he took out of that tree when he’d had too much towards the end of their night. And so he has to give himself time to get dressed. More time than usual, at least, given the circumstances.

Of course, Pagan doesn't like this in the slightest. He stamps his foot hard on the wooden floor, sending Ajay hissing through his teeth and stiffening his shoulders for a moment.

“Dude you need to fucking chill. Did you sleep at all last night?” Ajay says over his shoulder as he digs through his wardrobe for a suitable shirt.

Admittedly, he could wear any of them in this moment. He just wants to piss Pagan off a little for waking him up and dragging him out so early in the morning.

“Not a lick, my boy,” Pagan says cheerily, back to being blissfully serene, “I've been scouring the internet for  _hours_  looking for the perfect thing to buy! And I’ve done it! And he’s waiting for us at Varshakot!”

Ajay stiffens, straightening up. They're supposed to be beyond that shit. There's no way Pagan's bought himself a  _someone_. There's no way he's that strung out this time, making those kinds of decisions in the middle of the night. Paul, sure, but not Pagan.  _Not my thing, my boy_ , he could hear him say, pretentious fuck.

“Who's he? And  _what_ the  _fuck_  are you  _holding_?” He spells out, reiterating his earlier question.

Pagan has taken to turning the leather in his hands, jutting his lower jaw out a little and almost grinning to himself. He doesn't answer,  _of course not._  He's dancing on his feet, transfixed by this thing and looking ready to just turn and bolt out the door. And Ajay wishes he would, if only so he can go right back to bed, right back to his pleasant dreams. No more pink suit, no more late night Kingly benders, no more 6 AM wake-ups just like this one.

But then like a lightbulb has gone off over Min's head the King becomes perfectly still. He stiffens into a rigid, almost vibrating poise. A terrible, wicked grin tears across his face, all pearly whites and morning cognac breath he can smell from here. And he sucks a breath in, and Ajay waits, just fucking  _waits_  like he's got nothing better to do right now than gawk at His Royal Majesty,  _absolute twat_ , and then like a bowstring let loose, Pagan thrusts his handfuls of leather and chains into the air like a pump of triumph.

“We're going to ride a Jagras, Ajay,” the King says, brandishing what he can now see is an impressively enormous bridle.

“ _A what?!”_

-

Ajay can see Varshakot presiding over the lake, smoke unfurling in a stately column up over its walls and high into the air. It feels like they've been driving for hours, and he still has no idea why they haven’t taken the helicopter instead, for all of Pagan's fondness of the thing.  _Speaking of the Royal Pain_ …

“Hey, you doing alright back there?” Ajay asks, turning into the backseat to check on him.

King Min is sprawled across the entirety of the back of the jeep, staring wide-eyed and entranced at the ceiling even as he's jostled about by the rough terrain of the side roads they’ve turned off on to come round the back of Paul's fortress. He turns a small bag of cocaine in his hand thoughtfully, the other one still gripping that enormous harness even as he's spread-eagle in an SUV.

“…Pagan?” Ajay presses, “we came all this way for  _you_ , and if you're gonna crash now I swear to God I'll castrate you myself... How high are you?!”

He can't deny he hasn't been rather happy to  _not_  be subjected to his endless prattling he's prone to when he's high as a kite. Whatever dubious amounts of excitement await them in the fortress, he's just been happy to have a minute to himself. It's a small mercy he’s glad to receive. But before Ajay can truly appreciate Pagan's lack of response, the King shoots up, way too close to his face for comfort, startling the living hell out of him and causing him to withdraw to face forward in the front seat again.

“No no, it's hi, how are you? Oh we’re almost here! I just needed a nap. Had to conserve energy!” Pagan insists behind him, much to Ajay's chagrin, “don't you worry. I saved more of the good stuff for when we got here.”

And then Pagan  _kisses him_ , straight on the stubbly cheek, leaning between the front seats to get to him. He quickly falls back into the shadows of the back seats when his driver cusses at them both in Cantonese – something Ajay has never picked up learning. Ajay finds himself making a noise somewhere between disgust and embarrassment, scrubbing at his cheek to wipe away the wetness his lips left there. He can hear the crinkle of a baggie and a long, hard  _snort_  so awfully close to his ear.

“Fucking—we talked about this!” Ajay sighs, exasperated.

“Yes dear boy, but we only talked about what I try to do to you when I’m high, which, coincidentally, ah~” Pagan pauses, and he can almost hear him shudder, hard, “hopefully I will be in a moment. We never talked about Sober Pagan!”

“Aw- Jesus, man, the fuck do I even do with you?”

“Well, you keep me around for some reason! Oh look!! Gary!” Pagan's off cramming his face against the window of the jeep, palms spread on the cool glass.

Ajay is sure Pagan is going to start sweating soon, and shaking. He always does, every time. Wide eyes, deep pools of black, and trembling shoulders. Hands that touch everything and anything, oversensitive to the feel of his clothes. Pagan likes to take his clothes off when the cocaine is good enough. And whatever he's saved for this excursion, apparently, is  _good_  cocaine, because he soon finds himself behind led along behind an incredibly flustered looking Gary to the open fields behind the fortress. And Pagan's tugging his bespoke coat off, leaving it in the grass behind him carelessly for Ajay to collect along with the armfuls of leather and heavy ass chains he’s been left to carry,  _and fuck, this coat's already sweaty, nasty, but it smells nice, like vetiver and jasmine._

Ajay can hear something up ahead around the corner above the incoherent rambling of the King, the rattle of  _heavier_  chains and some great beastly growl that sends a spike of fear straight through him. Pagan is unfazed, and if anything becomes more fearless when he catches wind of whatever awaits them out of sight. He wriggles those shuddering shoulders, loosening his tense muscles, and suddenly he’s prying at the buttons of his expensive silk shirt.

Ajay scrambles forward to put an end to his wanton strip tease, having to forcibly pull at Pagan's hands to stop him. The King whimpers like a kicked dog, fighting him at first, but eventually he halts with a frustrated sigh. He tries to grab at Ajay's jacket, and for a moment he lets him, feeling Pagan's palms smooth over the fabric like it's the greatest thing he's ever felt in his life. Ajay knows it’s more the sensory experience of it when he’s like this. It's why they’ve had their talks. It's why he’ll only consider kissing him when he’s sober, and why he has his own bedroom for, well… most nights any more.

“Someone's gonna see you! Do you want  _that_  image on a poster plastered to the wall of a cottage somewhere?!” Ajay hisses, stuffing Pagan's coat against his chest insistently, “put your shit back on before a rando sees you like this.”

Pagan just stares at him curiously, sweat sticking his blonde bangs to his forehead and brows, and giggles. A tiny, halfhearted snort like some sort of child rebuking his parent. How did this become the opposite of their ridiculous dynamic earlier? His fingers are searching in the little zipper pockets at Ajay's chest, only poking in the open, empty ones.

“Hello? Are you in there?”

“Gary was told I have to assert my dominance over it! Chest muscles, Ajay! I get shirtless, and I beat my chest, and it bends its knee to me, and we ride it off gloriously into the sunset!” Pagan says suddenly, voice rising with every word until Ajay is shrinking away from him, throwing up his hands in defeat, “and Yuma can eat shit she's gonna be so jealous oh my god…”

Whatever he mutters at the end, Ajay doesn’t catch as Gary hollers up ahead, grabbing their attention which Pagan generously affords him with no hesitation. Now they're running for it, apparently in a hurry to get to this thing before it busts out of captivity. Not that this wasn’t the plan to begin with, but not before they've appropriately harnessed it and… made it  _submit to Pagan fucking Min, apparently?_

Pagan is out of his shirt and has tossed everything to the wind, and this time Ajay is  _not_  picking it up for him if he's really that determined to be half naked leaving his ridiculously expensive Mumu originals scattered in the dirt. The two ahead of him disappear around the bend, and as he comes around behind them he's nearly knocked backwards by the sight of what's playing out before him.

An enormous wooden framework easily twice the size of a school bus has been somehow dragged into the middle of what was once one of the Kyra Tea fields. Bound to this contraption with chains and padlocks Ajay thinks are even too heavy for an elephant is an angry, struggling  _behemoth_ , also easily twice the size of a school bus. He’s never in his life seen an animal like this, not even in his excursions through Shangri-La or his strangest drug-laced fever dreams from his wild teenage years. _This must be the Jagras, then…_  It’s made of all scale and claw, looking like some leviathan of an iguana with a mane of wicked looking spines as long as Ajay himself. And somehow he's less terrified and more just – stunned – and then he sees Pagan up ahead,  _swear to christ_ , cackling with unbridled joy,  _beating on his bare chest_  at this thing like some kind of deranged gorilla trying to prove a point that hasn’t even been made yet.

The monster hasn’t even noticed any of them yet for as rightfully pissed as it is with its restraints, and Ajay can't even wrap his head far enough around the situation to will any questions to come forward. The Jagras is making too much of a racket for him to yell anything at Pagan, not that he wants to interrupt this mess anyway. He finds himself slipping his phone from his pocket and snapping a few photos from the hip – for posterity, of course – and Gary's hand comes down hard on his shoulder, bringing him out of his focus.

“What is he doing?” he hears Gary’s voice close to his ear, hissing in disbelief.

“I thought you knew?! Didn’t you go out and  _buy_  this thing?” Ajay whips around, finding it hard to tear his eyes away from the mess unfolding before him just to stare at Gary in surprise.

“He told me he bought a shipment from somewhere called  _Astera_. All I did was take care of logistics, and I got…  _this_  thing over the border this morning!  _We had to airlift it into the lowlands where he wanted it Ajay,”_  Gary leans in close, concern wrinkling those lines of early aging into his face, “How do you explain that to citizens at 5 AM? Sorry, this is called a Great Jagras, it will most certainly devour you if we so much as let it out of these chains. But we're doing just that! Remain calm! Pagan's Light and all that!”

Ajay whips back to look at the absolute travesty of a Tuesday morning this has become, laments to himself that they will all most  _certainly_  be hearing about this on Radio Free Kyrat in a few hours, and then he realizes Pagan is nowhere to be seen.

“Fuck,” is all Gary can muster as he catches on at about the same time, and then they're both spreading off to cover the perimeter.


	2. Jagras's Light

It takes Ajay a moment to realize the Jagras has gotten much quieter, and on closer observation it's dropped to its great saggy belly on the wood. Its ribs heave with slow, heavy sighs and it almost sounds like it's  _purring_. Growling is probably a better word, but inexplicably, it's not upset. Reasonably, it probably should be, having been flown over from God knows where and chained up tight. He’s glad as hell it is right now but...

Far off to his left, Gary has stopped dead in his tracks and Ajay follows his line of sight back up to the Great Jagras's spiny mantle. A pale hand emerges above the spines, reaching over the goliath’s shoulders and grasping around the other side. It pulls, and the Jagras pays no mind to the yanking on it, and in a matter of moments up pops Pagan like he’s absolutely meant to be there. The King settles upon the beast's mantle of spines just behind its head, looking so small and insignificant sat upon such an outlandishly enormous  _lizard of destruction._

And what else could something this absolutely enormous be? Elephants could total a car in a few good rocks. He wonders what this big asshole could do to a bus. Shit, even a tank?

Furthermore,  _how did Pagan get up there so easily?_

“What the hell good is this thing then?!” Ajay bellows up at Pagan, wanting to slap that smug look right off his face as he holds up the heavy weight of chains and leather Pagan has insisted they direly need for this endeavor.

“Oh Idunno? I came ‘round this side, scratched behind his ear, and he let me on!” Pagan calls down, flushed red from the exhilaration of it all.

“It doesn’t even have ears to scratch…” he can hear Gary mutter, further losing the will to cope with what's happening.

Now that it’s been mounted by The Royal Annoyance the Jagras is growing restless again, irritated by the grip of Pagan's legs around its neck.

Ajay himself is just starting to realize this entire endeavor is one big mistake and several lost lives waiting to happen, but then Pagan does the one thing he  _hates_. He hates it because he  _loves_  it, and  _how can he say no to him like that_ , and he's helpless to watch in internal horror as the King screws up his face into the saddest puppy eyes and pity-pout he can muster. It's pathetic, and something so demeaning for someone so high off his mind should be cause for disgust, but it's those damn crocodile tears that get him  _every fucking time._

“You're not actually going to--" Gary utters, stunned.

“Ajaaaay! Come, my boy! He won't bite! I named him Eric! You remember Eric? You shot him in the back of the head? Can’t do that to this Eric, HA! Skull's too thick!” Pagan prattles on and on, rocking back and forth with such joviality and gusto that they're both sure he’s going to topple right off of the thing.

A fall from that height would most certainly break a few bones, if the Jagras doesn’t crane its head back and gobble him up on the way to the ground. Ajay's hands are sweating in his gloves, making them uncomfortably pruny. His mouth feels like cotton, his stomach has all but shriveled up inside him, and he’s certain at this point his balls have retracted clear into his ribcage in fear. Not even puppy eyes or fake pouts will do him in, not for that huge fucking  _thing_  in chains.

“No. No Pagan, this shit's too much, you're gonna die up there,” Ajay says, having to raise his voice to shout over the rattling of chains as the Jagras starts to stand again, pitching Pagan to and fro.

“Oh Kyra he _is_ going to die here. I shouldn’t have signed the release form. I should have turned the shipment around…” Gary curses, scrubbing at his forehead, saying his prayers, “it's going to break loose and we’re all going to have to hunt it down for  _years_ trying to kill it before it kills us…It can’t be King, It won't fit in the throne room… Or the helicopter… I can't fly a chopper that big…”

Ajay stares at Pagan, then at the Jagras. Back at Pagan, who's resumed his most valiant effort yet of glowering insistently in Ajay's direction, then back at the Jagras who, for the moment, seems sated simply to be standing again. Over to Gary, who's white as a ghost and may very well have shit himself for as tight as he’s clutching the slight pouche of his stomach.

“ _Jagras’s Light Shine Upon You All…”_ he hears Gary murmur, far off in some horrific future-vision Ajay doesn’t even want to know about.

His gaze flicks back to Pagan, and at last he locks eyes with the King, and  _fuck it._ Haughty and fearless as he may be up there on a throne of spines and sinew, the son of a bitch isn't invincible.

“ _Fuck_ I'm going to need a shot of coura--" Ajay is interrupted as a well-aimed half-used baggie of white powder  _thwacks_ him right between the eyes and falls into the grass just at his feet.

He looks up, slackjawed, at Pagan's shit-eating grin, and hurls it right back up at him in defiance, missing by a longshot. It must be his nerves, usually he’s got deadly good aim.

“Well come on then if you’re going to just stand there hurling drugs at me!” Pagan demands, “shit's already wearing off on me! Hurry it up my boy!”

Pagan certainly can't do this alone, and if he's really coming off his high this fast he's going to need someone there when he crashes, like he always does. And so, Ajay finds himself sprinting full tilt past Gary, hurling himself bodily at the glistening shoulders of this terrifying thing, and before he can pussy out he’s seated himself in front of Pagan on the Jagras's neck.

His legs kick and slip to find purchase in amongst all the long spines that hang almost like stiff hair from its neck, but once he’s got a solid foundation he's shockingly unafraid. For the moment, it really does feel a lot like an elephant. The height they're at would be dizzying if he hadn't grown so used to climbing and helicopter rides in his time here in Kyrat.

The Jagras breathes with life beneath them, swaying to and fro with a natural frenetic rhythm. Somehow their presence on its shoulders must comfort it, or maybe it's the grip on the spines nearest to the back of its head. He doesn’t want to think about what would happen if they grabbed the wrong edge, or even sat wrong on one of these. If this thing so much as rolls over on them…

Behind him Pagan snuggles up to his back, and he can feel from the settled stillness of his shoulders and the calmness of his breathing that the King is indeed coming down off his high much quicker than usual.  _How convenient_  that Ajay gets to do all the work yet again after all the glowering and temper tantrums. Typical Pagan, typical day for the two of them.

“Get up asshole,” Ajay chides, throwing an elbow back into Pagan's ribs, startling him effectively, “you wanted this, you're getting this! I'm only on for the ride. You're steering.”

Down below, Gary has somehow managed to get himself together enough to realize that King Min and his consort have, in fact,  _miraculously_  managed to get on top of this veritable drake. Ajay watches over the edges of wood and binding chains as Pagan's faithful lackey ambles over to their indentured steed to begin unlocking the mechanisms keeping the Jagras prisoner to this contraption. With every  _click, clack,_ and heavy  _thud_  of the padlocks he could feel the beast's energy grow beneath his legs, and consequently Pagan's antsy anticipation behind him.

All Ajay can feel welling in his chest is a sense of impending dread, fearing that moment they inevitably regret this. Cars crushed, women crying, soldiers dead,  _blood on Pagan's shoes_ _again…_

“So… Darling boy…” Pagan's voice is so close to his ear again, breath hot on the shell of it.

The King’s hands are on his waist, but not insistently. He wants to brush them off, to tell him to hold onto something more sturdy, but irritation and fear are a terrible combination that root right at the base of his throat and glue it shut.

“I'm coming down rather quick off this high and, ah, my… well, I didn't expect you to  _miss_  when you threw my  _last dose of the good cocaine_ back to me.”

Ajay's ears are burning hot as he clenches his fists, trying not to let it rankle him too much. Stupid decisions, Pagan,  _your fucking problem right now._  Gary has come around the other side of them, and the Jagras seems all the more eager to finally be free of his chains. He's practically trembling like an earthquake beneath them.

“I'm not getting them. I'm up here, and I'm not even sure my legs will move enough to let me get myself back down,” Ajay says, never looking away from Gary.

If he can watch for when the last chain is removed, he can brace for impact.

“This may have been the greatest decision I’ve ever made in my life,” Pagan says, serene as ever, and Ajay can just hear his chest swelling with pompous pride.

Before he can even muster a response, Gary’s hands fall open and the final chain falls slack around the midsection of the Great Jagras, freeing it entirely from its prison in what Ajay will likely find himself describing sometime later in his life as one of those slow-motion-movie-moments. Ajay can hear its massive claws dig into the wood beneath its feet, and then it  _bolts_  off for the forest like a bat out of hell, sending the two men on top of it screaming.

It wriggles and sprints in a clumsy, serpentine manner, pitching them to and fro in a way that has him wanting to throw up everything he's already purged once last night. They’re covering  _yards_  in a single step, and his eyes sting from the sheer speed of this thing, and  _fuck_  the trees are a lot closer to eye level than he anticipates. The Jagras tears off in a tight berth around Varshakot's perimeter and rockets straight for the nearest tree-line. Pagan nearly loses his grip on Ajay's coat, and lets out a peal of the most raucous cackling he’s ever heard the man make.

It would be heart-warming to listen to his gut-clenching belly laughs if they weren't very much  _not in any sort of control of this high speed death ride bound straight for the thickest forest cover_. Ajay tries in a panicked moment of desperation to yank at some of the spines he’s holding onto, cussing loudly to himself, to absolutely no avail.

“You witless fuck  _this_  is why we needed that fucking harness!!” Ajay bellows, and it’s at this very moment he realizes he's dying young today with his lover cackling like a madman against his back, hanging on for dear life on the back of a  _giant mutated iguana from hell._

“You're probably right! But this is  _so much better!”_  Pagan chokes through wheezing tears of joy, doubling over against Ajay's back as they close in on the edge of the forest.

They can't bail. Not at this speed, and not from this height. It wouldn’t be fair to make Gary come scrape them both off the road.

This is it then. What a fucking way to go,  _thanks asshole_. He hasn’t even gotten laid in a solid week,  _thanks again shitbag,_  so he’s got that going for him before he dies too. And Pagan just cannot contain his sheer enjoyment, like this is the absolute greatest way he could think to end his life – impaled on a tree branch and eviscerated on impact, possibly dragged through the underbrush by a Jagras and devoured later like an afternoon snack.

“ _ShitfuckholdonPaganfuckshitDUCK!”_

\-----

“Aaaalright my dudes it is Rabi Ray Rana and you are listening to Radio Free Kyrat! Now! I know what you’re thinking,  _what was that racket outside Varshakot_  on Tuesday morning? Would you believe me if I told you Pagan Min makes bad decisions? Of course you would, the dude wears fuchsia like it's a funeral, man, I'm jussayin, HEY! _SO_ \- Turns out guys, Cocaine is a hell of a drug, right? King's vice of choice, apparently! Chotu's is jalebi, mine happens to be Modern Plumbing Innovation Monthly buuuut anyway…

“King Min and Ajay Ghale were spotted getting on this awesome looking hell beast called a  _Jagras_  guys! Like, one of those big iguanas, but bigger. No, no, you’re picturing him too small still. Yep. No, yeah.  _Helicopter_ big… Where they got this thing? Idunno! Why they rode it? Idunno! But guys, that Jagras did  _not_  like Ajay. Like at all. Dude let Pagan Min on his back like they were best bros, kinda like how my Auntie with alopecia let that one wig maker take her out to dinner for a free wig. Soon as Ajay gets on, that dude is  _mad_ , guys. Like Amita after Sabal wins Prom Queen mad. So off they go, and dudes got  _yote_  man. You know how they say it. It's yeet or yoink.

“Ajay my bro, if you’re out there listening. If you survived that. Call me. I gotta know how bad your balls hurt riding those spikes bareback. I care about you man.”

_For fuck's sake._

Pagan is decidedly quiet on his side of the bed, and Ajay can't see his face the way he's rolled away from him. Everything hurts, even five days after the fact. It's taken this long for the rumors to spread, at least, which is shocking given the alarming speed at which Rabi tends to spew his particularly amusing brand of banter.

Neither of them can remember how they ended up back at the palace, only that Gary had turned up  _three days later_  looking like he'd seen a ghost, wearing a crown of spikes that the Jagras had shed when it crashed into the trees and spouting absolute gibberish about the Light of Jagras.

And now they’re here, Pagan clutching the radio, tuned in to Rabi retelling their chaotic Tuesday morning like it's the best thing since sliced bread. And Ajay's head is screaming, and he wants to reach out and slap Pagan upside the head for reminding him any of this even happened, but then the King starts to laugh quietly.

“Ah…  _yeet_ … what does that even mean?” Pagan snickers to himself, and Ajay rolls his eyes.

“Hell if I know. Rabi and his strange ass vernacular,” Ajay sighs, and his hands are on Pagan's bare back, careful not to brush any of the swollen bruises that mar the skin.

This is the calmest either of them have been in a week. Shocking, considering the circumstances leading up to their solitary confinement. He's only glad they've managed to walk away  _miraculously_ without any serious injuries.

“God my fucking shoulders hurt,” Pagan grumbles, turning onto his back and tilting his head to look at Ajay, “…head now, too, listening to  _this_  6 AM report on the radio.”

“Beats propaganda,” Ajay snorts, heaving himself until he’s sitting up as best he can in bed.

It's not a perfect morning, but considering he’s in Pagan's bed instead of his own, and neither of them have been on any late night benders since the last one, it's a decidedly good morning. Pagan lays beside him, quiet and still, for a long time, and he just can’t hold that grudge any longer. Better to forget that wild blur of a moment than to hang onto it forever, right?

“I thought I was gonna die having not gotten fucked in a solid week, Pagan,” Ajay says after a long moment of companionable silence, carding his fingers through Pagan's mussed-up morning hair.

“You’ll get over it.”

_Ouch_.

“I think you owe me for putting up with your bullshit,” he presses, “I could have left you alone to be the only one getting scraped up off the fucking dirt. Instead I got up there with you…”

Pagan pauses for consideration, and the twinkle of mischief in his eye makes Ajay simultaneously want to kiss him and shove him right off the mattress. Suddenly his hands are reaching up above his head, up to grasp at Ajay's neck to tug him down to the bed to meet him in an upside-down kiss, and Ajay's heart twinges. No, he’ll definitely get over it.

“I think I can oblige…” Pagan murmurs just against his lips, sending shivers down his spine.

They’re tangling up together then, hands roaming and lips exploring, taking special care to avoid sore spots and still-aching joints. A thought strikes Ajay as he tucks his forehead into Pagan's strong shoulder and he draws away just enough to catch his gaze.

“Did they ever find the Jagras?”

A wicked grin curls across Pagan's lips, baring his teeth, and Ajay just  _knows_ without having to hear another word what his answer is, but he gets one anyway.

“They needed somewhere to hold him until we can send him home…  _Yuma has a surprise waiting at Ratu Gadhi.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Thank you so much for reading my silly story! I hope you got a chuckle or two, I know I did when writing it. I've never written something so ridiculous in my life, and I've come to love it, somehow. My little silly Pajay Jagras crack-fic child...


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